Half a penny for your thoughts too…

Southwest Airlines Sale Not As Large As Thought

Airfares are starting to inch back up, signs indicate, even on the prices of tickets on sale.Southwest (LUV), the nation’s leader in low-cost flying, this week introduced a sale on fares with prices on some routes higher than the lowest fares customers have come to expect.

They included a $118 round trip between Phoenix and San Diego and $296 between Baltimore and Los Angeles.

While “not really that bad,” Tom Parsons of BestFares.com says, the fares are higher than the historical range of Southwest’s sale prices.

Southwest traditionally has set the floor on coast-to-coast fares that are on sale at $99 one way and $198 round trip. The airline’s website now lists new coast-to-coast bottom fares at $149 and $298, respectively.

Frontier and AirTran (AAI), Southwest’s low-cost competitors, have also increased sale fares on some routes by $10 each way.

Parsons says the days of rock-bottom fares appear to have ended.

“The writing is on the wall,” says Parsons, whose website monitors prices. “We had nine months of great travel bargains in 2009. Air travelers will be paying much more (in 2010) than they did in early 2009, as much as 50% more.”

Travel website Travelocity also has detected signs that fares are no longer dropping.

Fares booked for fall travel in mid-September were 14% lower than a year ago — down from the 15% year-over-year drop in fares in July, Travelocity’s bookings show.